Red Eyes
by GP72
Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester investigate a series of unexplained disappearances in the small town of Sedaia, Colorado - a job that will bring them into a collision course with two agents of the FBI, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The truth, unfortunately, will prove a little stranger than any of them could have predicted.
1. Red Eyes CH01: The Ties That Bind

The following is something I did as a bit of a writing exercise, and for the amusement factor. I've been a fan of both shows for a while and I had a creative urge to scratch which doesn't get much traffic in the regular job. I like feedback, generous to brutal, so be sure to provide it. Suggestions welcome.

Please note that this is not – NOT – in any sense, a vehicle for so-called 'slash' fiction, unless you count the blatantly obvious crossover among shows. If you're looking for that… well, read it anyway. And make sure to give it top ratings, if only in shameful restitution for your moral failings. =) Not that I judge, of course: it is not for me to judge.

_I only tell the story. _

GP

**Red Eyes**

**Chapter One: The Ties That Bind**

Miranda Hearns stood at her kitchen window, staring out at her lawn and the dark woods beyond it.

She'd spent a good few years there, she thought. A long time. A woman spent so many years of her life asleep, so many driving, so many in the shower, so many in love, so many out of love; so many years in the company of others, and so many alone.

Miranda had been alone for a long time since Tom had moved on, and the bottle had borrowed her husband for a year or two before that. After he'd gone, she'd hoped that he might come back – a few scant years of checking the driveway, glancing at the phone. She looked down at her hands; it had been a long time. There was dust on that trail.

She could see the old swings in the backyard from where she was standing. Tom had bought the swingset and slide secondhand in that other life. They were rusted and old too, with weeds all around. She'd never had the heart to have them removed. She wanted to. _Maybe tomorrow,_ she thought, in the way of those driven into quiet desperation. _Maybe tomorrow I'll start over. It's never too late._ She set the last dish in the rack; she never bothered drying them, because it seemed a waste of time, even to those who had too much time to fill. Weeds grew thick in her backyard. The grass was growing long.

In that other time, before coming to Sedaia, Colorado, Miranda had been a city girl from El Paso. They had had a child, a boy, and Tom had moved them to the country because the city had been no place to raise children. Christopher had had a smile like his mother and eyes like his father. They had loved him very well; he had been tall and happy and strong. He had loved the swingset; had worn the wooden seats pale with use, had ridden the green plastic slide till it bowed and cracked. Perhaps that was why it remained there still.

It had turned out that the country had been no place to raise children either.

Not that it was Tom's fault; it was no-one's fault, except the man who had done it – everyone said so. They were more common in the cities, but here had come one who had been where he was not supposed to have been.

Tom had taken Chris hunting. She had not liked when they did that; in the dark places between the hours she had half expected a hunting accident out in the brush, a horrible mistake, apologies, ruined lives. She had hardened herself against the possibility, but it had not happened. What had happened specifically, they had never told her. In a way, she had not wanted to know, but the casket had been closed and it had been Tom who identified… The police felt that Christopher had not suffered – although how they could have known was not at all clear – and Tom, well, Tom had done _something_. They had all done _something_. It had not helped. It had not brought Christopher back. How could her man possibly have changed _that_?

It was hot tonight. It had been hot all week, the heat crawling into Colorado like a lizard until the state was blanketed in thick, humid air. She remembered that it had only been like this once before, twenty years ago – the year that her little Christopher had been taken away. Perhaps this was why her mind was taking strange roads tonight.

The backyard was a little breezy. The swing where Christopher – toothy, laughing boy in her mind's eye, not what they had found in the trees and what she had never seen – swinging back and forth.

It was not breezy. The trees were _not_ rocking on this still, hot night, and the grass was _not_ waving in the breeze, and her washing on the line was perfectly, completely motionless.

She looked again. No, no, she was right: Nothing was moving.

Except the swings.

An atavistic string tied to her heart gave a sharp, plaintive pull. Miranda didn't _believe_ in all that nonsense about spirits and ghosts; she'd come from a Methodist minister whose extremity of faith had driven out a belief in the afterlife or anything in between as ruthlessly as a glacier, culminating in a final, bitter argument and twenty years of empty phone lines. But there was something about those swings moving that gave the flutter of a desperate urge in her heart and before she knew it she was standing in front of the porch, dishtowel still in hand, watching the swings move back and forth, back and forth until eventually they were as still as everything else.

Miranda trembled, standing in the back yard. A coyote. A coyote, or maybe a jackrabbit that had darted by, or a puff on wind, on this windless night. Christopher was not coming back. He was _never_ coming back. The weather had reminded her, and the scents in the air. Smell was a reminder. Smell was a shadow.

There was no one to see, but Miranda Hearns suddenly pressed her hands – aged, tired hands – to her face to hold back her tears, but they were flooding out of her faster and faster now, a flood. She stood in her backyard and wept and wept until she hiccupped. When she was done, she cuffed the tears from her eyes, wiped her nose with the tea-towel in her hands and turned to go back inside, cramped feet taking the divot leading to her back door. Christopher had been exorcized for another year, perhaps, or until she would think of him again.

_Mom_, a voice suddenly said.

She froze and did not turn around. A trick of the wind; a creak of the sapling trees at the edge of the woods; a stray rustle of a rabbit or a prairie dog in the long grass.

_Mom_, Chris' voice said again.

Slowly, Miranda turned towards the sound.

Then she screamed.

The black '67 Impala – a rare and dying breed of that kind of vehicle known as the _muscle car_ – thundered west on Highway 70, the sun bright in the windshield and _Black Sabbath_ thudding in the radio. It carried two men; a driver and passenger. The former was square-shouldered with a sharp crewcut, the other a hulking giant with hair down past his ears slouching in the passenger seat. They were inconspicuous in the way of the young: fitting in by standing out.

The radio was blasting. '_Whoo, yeah!_' the first man howled, tapping the wheel slowly in time to _No Stranger to Love_. 'That Ozzie. Thirty years of solid gold.'

The tall one looked over. 'And the drug abuse, the family issues? _Ozzie Knows Best_?'

'You watch how you talk about the prince of rock and roll, Sam. It's like the devil: say his name and he _shall_ appear.' The first man tapped his thumbs on the wheel as the car roared along. 'All right. Where we going, Ponch?'

'We covered this last night, Dean.'

'Yeah, but, ah – ' and the man called Dean made an awkward bottle-tipping motion toward his lips. 'So c'mon, Sammy: hit me with it one more time.'

'_Sam_,' the giant corrected him as he opened a wide valise at his feet. A manila envelope was marked 'CASES, CURRENT' in faded blue ink. The cover was partially defaced with the phrase "VAN HALEN RULES" in large mixed-color block letters, and with rude sketches that had been half-heartedly obliterated with a felt marker. 'OK, this is it.' He looked up. 'But… look, I don't want you to flip out, okay?'

'Flip out? Sammy, I'm a _professional_. A little professional courtesy here.'

'_Sam_. OK, so don't say I didn't warn you, because I told you about this last night, all right? We're headed to Sedaia, Colorado.'

'And so…?' Dean prompted.

'_And_ _so_ two people have gone missing in Sedaia – '

'Natch.'

' – neither one leaving a forwarding address or telling anyone, relatives or neighbors where they were going. There's some strange implications that the papers don't really seem to want to say either. It's not on the page but it's between the lines. So, I was thinking, maybe cult stuff, you know.'

'Huh,' said Dean pensively, letting out a breath through his nose. 'Well, I guess that might be us. But…anything _actually_ weird? Definitely up our alley?'

'Well.' Sam hesitated again. 'There's been some strange activity around there.' Sam tensed immediately as Dean shot him a critical sideways look. 'People have been…seeing things. Lights.'

'Lights.'

'And, uh… shapes.'

'Shapes?'

'In the sky,' Sam added quietly.

Immediately Dean tensed and the purr of the Impala changed as if sensing his mood. 'What _kind_ of shapes and lights?'

'Well, they're…' Sam tried to drag it out, but in the end, there was nothing left but to say it. 'Not identified.'

Dean came right off the accelerator and the beast roared as it slowed. 'Oh, come on, Sammy!' He smacked the wheel hard. '_Not identified_? I know what that means! _UFOs!_ Little green men! You keep trying to sneak that stuff in on us, but you _know_ it's crap! You _know_ what Dad would say! In twenty years of hunting this country one end to the other, he never found nothing that ever proved there was _any such thing_ as aliens visiting the planet. Dammit, Sammy, that ain't no job for us!' He smacked the wheel again and seemed to slump in his seat, handling the wheel with a few fingers.

Sam, not quite withered, continued. 'And there's been some cattle mutilations.'

'_Cattle mutilations_,' Dean mumbled. 'Course. Little green guys needed a snack. Any probing? 'Cause I could _reeally_ get into interviewing some of them _probees_ like in Gulf Breeze? Remember Gulf Breeze?'

'I remember you hit on a lady that turned out to be a – '

'That – ' Dean said, looking pale ' – that did not happen. And don't change the subject!' he barked. 'We've been over this before, we don't – '

'Look, it is what it is, okay?!' Sam finally shot back. 'I told you already. _Everything is quiet_. Nothing going on, or nothing I can find anyway, and this has the benefit of actually _happening_. Lots of people have seen it, and it's in the papers. Okay?'

'Oh, the _papers_. They never get _anything_ wrong, Sammy. Wait a minute.' A sudden thought had struck Dean. 'Was that why you bought the Jim Beam?'

'_Look_,' said Sam with heat, 'we're not hunting anything else right now, so I thought maybe we could go check it out, okay? I'm just trying to keep us busy. Keep our mind off… things. Better we go on a…a… a _snipe hunt_, than do nothing at all! And weirdly-slaughtered cows are still weirdly-slaughtered cows, Dean! Missing people are missing people! We do weird. _This is weird!_ And – and for all we know it's some kind of weird monster, or a cult gearing up for something bigger, like a person. I mean, the worst we can do is show up and put the fear of God in them. That's positive, isn't it?'

Dean fumed. 'I'll tell you how it's going to be: we run around town for weeks, interviewing little old blue-haired ladies about funny little men on their porch and prodding smelly, _stinking cow carcasses_. And you know what we'll find? _Nothing_,' he affirmed. 'Dad went on a hundred of these hunts, and he never found anything under the surface but _more crazies_.' He said nothing for a while after that. Then: 'Okay, Mr. Optimism. Okay. It's just…I hate the freaks that come out for these things, you know? I mean, first it's the lights in the sky, then it's the cow mutilations,' he was ticking off fingers, 'And all that sounds fine, but then it's _abductions_, and _probings_, and hybrid alien babies and government conspiracies and telepathic contact with beings from Zeta-9. It just gets _weird_. I mean, seriously: you ever get the impression that that the government knows what's going on at all so well they could handle anything like that? That they care? How many times you ever _see_ a government spook on one of our jobs? You ever think that? It's crazy.'

Sam shrugged; spit though he might, Dean was as good as in the bag and now was the hour to wax rhapsodical. 'Well, think of it this way,' he ticked off his fingers, 'We see the sights, have a few beers, check out the local scenery. And if we find anything, great. _And_ – I hear they have a really huge ball of yarn there.'

Dean hesitated. Trees and fenceposts crawled past, whipping by as they neared. 'How huge?'

'Like…_really big_.'

A long pause now. 'Well. That sounds better. But it better be a big one.'

Another car, much unlike the Impala, was heading to that day. It was a quite new – 2012 – Swedish import boasting a conservative but reliable V6 amply boosted by car magazines tailored to upscale professionals. It was archetypically inconspicuous, and therefore very conspicuous: but its passengers benefitted from that. They represented the very highest halls of officialdom.

They were heading south from Denver Airport on Highway 25 rather than across the open spaces of Middle America, for they were in the uncommon position of having almost unrestricted air mileage within the continental United States. The windows were _not_ down; the air conditioner was on full instead. It had been a hot week in southern Colorado, possibly the hottest on record, or so the prophets of Channel 5 lay out their entrails.

The man's suit was plain, dark and moderately expensive; natty without being ostentatious. It was practical and economical, as fit his sort of professional. He was driving; he usually drove. He had seized this position by deceit, as he usually did. He tapped his fingers and humming along to the lyrics from a heavy metal song written by an old English rocker gone semi-pop. He didn't know the new lyrics, but pretended to know. Sometimes he could certifiably mumble his way through a stretch from the refrain.

His companion was female: a striking redhead blossoming in her mid-thirties, wearing a light green overcoat and conservative women's suit, staring dejectedly out the passenger window. The morning was clear but she was decidedly un-sunny. It had been another of his long red-eye flights and – as usual – she wasn't sure how she'd let him talk her into this. 'Mulder, what are we doing here?' she asked without looking across at him. The flight had run into an unusual amount of chop at Denver and she did not like turbulence.

'Should be there in about an hour,' said the man. 'We'll just check in and get the lay of the land, and start canvassing this afternoon.' He glanced sideways. 'If that's okay with you.' She didn't answer. 'Scully?'

'That doesn't explain what we're doing here, Mulder,' the redhead sighed.

Agent Fox Mulder cleared his throat, maintaining his ingratiating smile. This was familiar ground. So long as they had worked together, there had been this. 'We're chasing leads, Scully,' the man said with a flash of exuberance. 'In the wide-open spaces.' Scully's cold look encouraged a fuller disclosure.

'June 15: just last week. Five people reported seeing a strange object in the sky against sunset and blue lights. The lights were faint but they described the shape of the aircraft silhouette as not immediately recognizable.'

'So?'

Mulder smiled, glad she'd taken up that particular challenge. 'So one of the observers was a twenty-year army vet at Fort Drum in New York State: yet he said that it matched no configuration he was aware of.' Mulder took a long, sweeping turnoff. 'Then, lights were recorded on two succeeding nights; high and not blue.'

'Mulder, that doesn't sound like much.'

Back on the straight, Mulder accelerated – but not too much. He wasn't one for racing, really. Wasteful. 'There's more. This area is known for unusual activity, Scully. Some of the locals reported strange lights in the sky here before, back around 1990. Now, this in itself might be unremarkable – '

'I would certainly say so.'

' – if not for the fact there were also a large number of – '

'_Cattle mutilations_,' Scully filled in.

Mulder smiled; a little _mea culpa_. 'As it happens, right in one, Scully. It might turn out to be nothing more than a college prank, or natural decomposition, flares…_desert gas_…' he added with dry comedy. 'But the sightings themselves were reported by over _a hundred people_ back then, replete with changes in acceleration and course. That's a lot of people to misidentify a really strange meteor shower, wouldn't you say? And that history brings us to today.'

Scully sighed. 'Radar?'

'That's the funny part: neither the local air strip nor the weather station confirms anything in the sky that night aside from a privately-owned Cessna.'

'And did the Cessna pilot see anything?'

Mulder looked embarrassed. 'Well, no, and neither did his two passengers.'

'Then that finishes it, Mulder: there was nothing in the sky except a shooting star, coupled with misobservation by people on the ground. Natural space debris passing at unusual angles can look like changes in direction and speed to the uninitiated.'

'Well, the Cessna pilot was flying away from the area at the time the lights passed, so he may not have been in position to see anything,' Mulder backpedaled. 'And there are too many witnesses, Scully.'

'And in 1920 almost a thousand people in Spain said they'd seen Mary, the mother of Jesus, appear in the sky over Santiago, Mulder. Mass delusion: the eye sees what the mind – and everyone else's mind – wants them to see. A meteor shower becomes monsters in a flying saucer. A loaf of bread becomes Jesus' face.'

'Does a loaf of blasphemous bread abduct two people?' Mulder asked. When Scully gave him a blank look, he continued. 'Your meteor shower coincides with the disappearance of one Miranda Hearns, age 55, and one Jacob Dryer, age 69. Mrs. Hearns is a divorcee that lives alone towards the north outskirts of Sedaia. Dryer is a drywall hanger, retired, wife deceased, lives or lived alone in a development on the east side.' He slid a manila envelope across to her. 'Both disappeared shortly after the lights were seen. No Jesus reported.'

Scully opened the envelope. 'Suicide. Ran off. Murdered. Fell in a hole,' she ticked off possibilities.

'Miranda Hearns was spotted at the supermarket Tuesday evening buying groceries and her vehicle is in residence. One neighbor, says he saw nothing. No visitors, no taxis and she wasn't known for long neighborhood walks. Personal effects are on the scene and no unusual credit card activity. In fact, no use at all in forty-eight hours. She wasn't seen by anyone after her visit to the supermarket and didn't go to work.'

Scully made a noncommittal noise.

Mulder continued. 'Jacob Dryer was last seen bragging about his first grandson to a neighbor on Wednesday afternoon. His sister went to visit him after her weekly bridge game.'

'Bridge?'

'Not everyone likes depressing medical dramas on a Wednesday night, Scully,' Mulder chided. 'His sister came at about 9:40 to find that he wasn't there. Same as before, vehicle in residence and not known as a casual stroller.' Mulder raised an eyebrow at his partner. 'Who fills up the freezer before deciding to light out for new pastures? Or is so depressed by the birth of a grandchild that they commit suicide in some out-of-the-way place? And where are the suicide notes? They don't fit the demographic, Scully.'

'Murder?' she pressed, strongly considering it.

'The first police report indicates blood at the scene of the Hearns residence, and a 12-gauge registered to Jacob Dryer at his house along with a huge amount of blood. No bodies found in either location.'

'Murdered for his weapon,' Scully concluded coolly. 'What's so strange about that?'

'Nothing, except that you're forced to ask what kind of person would take on an ex-Marine with a 12-gauge.' He sifted through the documents she was holding out of the corner of his eye to locate a photocopy of a military service sheet. 'Two disappearances in the same small town – population three thousand and thirty-four – separated by only twenty-six hours. No other major crime reported in twenty years. That strikes me as an impressive convergence of coincidence.'

Scully finally bit: 'How much blood?'

'Hard to say. Samples have been sent to the forensics lab in Denver. We should have the results back in forty-eight hours.'

'Well,' Scully mused. 'We should canvass her neighbors, friends, church groups. Any ex-boyfriends or estranged husbands?'

'One: Tom Hearns, 53. Lives about two hours away. He was at work the whole week and on the weekend he was at his nephew's softball game on Saturday.'

'Two hours leaves enough gaps to drive in, commit a murder and drive home.'

'True. They're checking his credit cards and phone records now. But my bet is that he isn't our man.'

'And that E.T. did it,' Scully said sardonically.

Mulder smiled again. 'Open your mind to the possibilities, Scully. Let's see what this case holds for us.'

'Oh, I can guess what it holds for us: autopsies for me. Exposition for you.'

The rest of the ride was spent in an awkward silence.

END Chapter 1


	2. Red Eyes CH02: American Spirit

**Chapter Two: American Spirit**

Sam and Dean pulled off the highway at the outskirts of the town. Into a run-of-the-second-mill hotel optimistically called the _Hotel Seven_. They contradictorily gave it a 4½ by consensus; Dean liked the neon-green lamps and the shag rug while Sam found the sickly marine green of the shower curtain 'nauseating'. Neither of them filled out the _'Tell Us What You Think!'_ card, although Dean made some offensive doodles.

The boys had grown up in Kansas but even the heat of those shimmering summers paled compared to the furnace outside. Dean tossed his bag on the right bed and flipped the AC to full blast. 'Beer and chicken wings tonight.'

Sam unpacked immediately, because he always did. 'First stop?'

'Scene of the crime.'

'Ah: _gabardine_,' said Sam.

A few minutes later, they were in their best federal agent suits – Sam still disparagingly called them 'costumes' – the pickings from a truck stolen near Rochester. Neither high-power nor low-rent, they passed muster with local authorities. Dean called them natty. Sam's opinion was only a letter different.

The black sedan heated up quickly on the drive across town. 'Jesus, are we closer to hell here?' Dean asked, loosening his tie.

'Not by altitude. Record heat this season,' said Sam from the shady side of the car.

'Not a dry heat, either.' Dean had abandoned the black car's overworked AC and was cranking down the window. 'Humid.'

'I'm taking this off,' Sam suddenly said and shucked the tie.

'_Chaaaaaaracter_.'

'We got time.'

_Short Drive_, on which the Hearns residence was located, was actually longer than the adjacent street _Long Way_, so either the developers had had a sense of humor, seemingly, or perhaps the monotony of naming and naming had got to someone at city hall. The community was older – 1980s or so, now neither very rich nor very poor. The Hearns residence was a small detached two-story, reasonable lot size interspersed with spruce and pine. The grass was bitter and shot with weeds – hard work for a single woman without a riding model – and the garden plots well turned. 'Rich people get landscapers; poor people get crabgrass,' Sam philosophized as he did his tie.

The driveway was sharply inclined so Dean parked on the road and turned off the Impala's chunky ignition. A couple deputies nodded appreciatively at the muscle car; Dean nodded back at the female one, who gave him a warm smile.

The porch had been taped off by two deputies ostensibly looking for clues but actually not. 'Sheriff's round back,' one said, touching the brim of his hat. Dean waved in acknowledgement.

'Oooh, _feds_,' the short one mocked when Sam and Dean had gone.

'_Now_ we'll see some inaction,' said the tall one.

Sheriff Joe McCarthy took off his hat and ran a hand through his thinning hair.

He was a man turning irrevocably to seed. His football years – Pop Warner; one of the first clubs in the state – long past. Still, Sedaia had never been a place for really active police work; few criminals needed to be chased down by foot in a community where most people knew each other. Most of his business was drunk-rousting, domestics, lost kids that turned up again – or almost always so. And now Miranda was gone too. He glanced up at the bright sun gleaming like the relentless eye of God, watching, deciding. Perhaps He had seen where Miranda Hearns had gone, but if He had, He was not saying. 'Sheriff?' said a voice.

Two men were approaching. An instinct made McCarthy's gut immediately twist; _feds_. Sure enough: twenties, inexpensively tailored suits and already reaching for their identification. One had a crew-cut and the other, surprisingly, was a giant with hair past his ears. Strange. McCarthy had a man with long hair too; he made a mental note to speak to him about it again. Maybe it was a new era at the FBI too, but not by McCarthy's lights.

_Crew-cut_ gave him the kind of professional smile practiced in front of a mirror again and again with the shirt and the suit-jacket until it shone. He extended a hand. 'Sheriff McCarthy? Hi. I'm Agent Stanley and this is Agent Thayer.' Crew-cut, who was Stanley, and Longhair, who was Thayer, flipped open their wallets. IDs, check, check. 'We're with the _Bureau_.' There was the tiniest theatrical hesitation before he said _Bureau_, as if Crew-Cut Stanley was sharing secret knowledge, never, ever to be given except to the worthy.

'Oh,' said McCarthy. There was a little gray flash as he stood up; age, weight. Even that little action threatened to break out sweat on his back. How many more good summers had he? Not that this was a good one, now, and hotter than hell. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said, though he was not. He shook their hands; young men's handshakes, but solid. His visitors looked a little young to be FBI; actually they looked a _lot_ young to be FBI. God, was he really getting _that_ old? 'Joe McCarthy. Welcome to Sedaia.' He stepped back and took a moment to think. 'You're here for our case?' Which meant: _you're here to _take_ our case away? This woman is one of ours; she was of us._

Thayer – the longhair – instantly held up a hand. 'No, Sheriff, not even a little. We're here to help, and only to help,' he said firmly. The FBI man's manner was so forthright that McCarthy could almost believe it. 'Well, I'm not sure what you can do for us. What do you know about what's happened?'

'Miranda Hearns, 55, divorced, lived alone, missing since Tuesday night,' Agent Thayer recited. 'No priors, no complaints, bank history normal.' Sam knew these things for a fact; he and his laptop had been busy that morning. 'And no signs of forced entry or struggle.'

'Yeah, that's right. A neighbor saw her come home from her shift at the diner.'

'We reviewed the file on the way over, but we're a little lost at sea here, Sheriff. We'd really like to hear your impressions as to cause and suspect,' Agent Stanley interjected.

McCarthy gave them a hard look. 'All right. What's the FBI's interest in this?'

Thayer and Stanley looked at each other. Stanley spoke. 'We believe it resembles a couple of disappearances in California, two years back; nothing really crazy, but a few strong similarities. If so, we have reason to think that the perpetrators have crossed state lines. We're just checking things out.'

'_Similarities_. What _kind_ of similarities?'

'Single adults just past midlife, residential neighborhoods about this price range. Isolated, semi-rural. Fringes of suburbia,' the one called Thayer supplied, just as quickly as if he'd read it off a card. 'Complete disappearance, minimal blood trace.'

'Well, then the FBI is really reaching, because that sounds like it could fit a lot of things.'

They both smiled disarmingly, as if they'd been over such stretches of road before. 'Trust us, sir: the Bureau is very interested in these cases. Disappearances of this sort, in these districts – '

The word _districts_ triggered a sudden thought. 'Hold on a second… just… wait a minute.' McCarthy scratched his head, then snapped his fingers. 'The state FBI office sent you out, didn't they?' he demanded. 'Didn't they? Mailer sent you down here, didn't he?' Things were starting to make sense.

The FBI agents glanced at each other nervously and that was when McCarthy knew, _knew_ that he had them. He hid his smirk. Well, well. Election-year fiddling, and Sedaia was a district in the balance. A little TLC from upstairs was just what was needed to make sure they swung back towards the incumbent. He didn't know whether to laugh or what. A voting year and here was Miranda dead. 'Worried voters. Governor's thinking ahead. Right?'

The young, young FBI agents gave him sheepish yet strangely relieved smiles. 'Sheriff,' said the bristly Stanley. 'We really can't comment on – '

'Never mind. I know what you can't comment on,' the Sheriff grunted. So that was it. Just that. It angered him, made him feel dirty inside. It was like they were walking across Miranda's grave. He turned. 'Come on.'

He took them to the back porch. 'We think this is where… whatever it was happened. The back door was open. Screen door latched shut, not locked. She'd been doing the dishes, full sink and clean stuff in the rack. Nothing taken from the house, car, TV, cash. Whatever happened, it just happened… to Miranda.' He stopped, thinking. Happened. To Miranda. What was that?

'Sheriff?' Stanley was looking at him a little funny.

'Uh. Nothing. Nothing,' McCarthy shook his head. It was nothing. 'No signs of forced entry – not that there would be – and no damage, not that there would be. We searched every inch of the house and found nothing, not even any fingerprints from anyone other than Miranda herself.' Of course not. When was the last time vandals _kidnapped_ someone? He wiped his brow again. God, it was hot. They went into the back yard. This had been cordoned off also. The grass was long; Miranda Hearns had not used her lawn there and it had been cut only sparsely. 'Evidence here, Sheriff?' Thayer asked.

McCarthy gestured. 'Look for yourself.'

Sam and Dean went down the stairs. 'Sam,' Dean said. Flattened, shiny footprints were still visible in the overgrown lawn leading towards to the rusty kid's playset, a little splayed from growth and wind but still recognizably smaller than a man's. Sam and Dean gave each other a look, and then the Sheriff. McCarthy gestured for them to follow the prints and Dean stalked carefully onto the lawn. 'Anything in the grass?'

Sam was behind, scanning the grass. 'Nothing.'

The tracks led up to the swingset and then – ended. 'Uhh…' Dean started to say. Sheriff McCarthy cleared his throat. 'Before you ask, we don't know. We know she didn't spend a lot of time back here, not since Chris…' He trailed off. 'But the prints have to be hers.'

'Why?' Sam asked.

'Right size, and they're the only ones coming from the house. Front door's locked, so unless someone her size came in, locked it on the way out – and we already checked for prints – and you can tell that from the shape of the prints – to here. That's it.'

'How can that just be it? Where'd she go?'

'Maybe you can tell us,' said McCarthy bitterly. 'We don't know.' He walked them around the swings. 'The only thing that seems to be possible… it's…' He took off his hat again, playing with the brim. This was not the way things ought to go. It wasn't… right. Wasn't _normal_. There were elections coming up. He'd have to run. His pension wasn't indexed high enough yet. Jean wouldn't understand, he knew that much. He'd just spit it out. See what happened. Who the hell were they anyway? Just some goddamned Feds. 'It's as though she walked here, to the swings, turned around in place, then… just disappeared. Like she clicked her heels together and flew up into space.'

Instead of laughing… the feds gave each other another one of those looks. 'Could she have maybe climbed up here?' Thayer said. 'Climbed up and jumped to the woods?'

'_Twenty feet?_ Miranda wasn't in much shape that I ever knew her and less these last years. She couldn't have managed anything like that.'

The agents thought. 'What about a rope?' Thayer suggested.

McCarthy hated sideburns. 'What, she swung across like Tarzan?'

'How much did she weigh?' Stanley asked him suddenly.

'What?'

'How much did she weigh?'

McCarthy blinked. They were _serious_. 'Uh… well, about one forty to one sixty. Why?'

'Well, she could have been _brought_ across. Maybe someone met her here and grabbed her,' Stanley said. He turned. 'The, ah, perp could have picked her up, maybe jumped.'

'_Twenty feet_ to the woods, carrying a woman on his back?'

'Beats the idea that she just flew off,' Stanley shot back. They were inspecting the swingset. 'Huh,' said Dean. There were marks in the rust where it had been worn away by the grip of hands on the old iron. He felt the apparatus. It seemed… solid. Well-founded. Sunken, somehow? 'This looks like a handprint.' McCarthy came over to look at the mark, mystified. 'More here,' Dean said. Dust and rust both had been scraped away there.

'Check this out,' Sam said. One of the swing-horse bars was bent at a strong angle. It was, moreover, the side nearest the woods. 'I'm guessing no one uses this anymore?' Sam asked McCarthy.

'No,' McCarthy said. 'No one uses it anymore.'

Agents Thayer and Stanley went to the edge of the woods. It was, McCarthy reflected, dark and foreboding. Then again, the woods had never looked the same to him after that night so long ago. 'Anyone looked in here yet?' Stanley asked.

'Not yet. We're doing a search of the woods tomorrow. Neighbours, relatives in town, just good citizens trying to find a lost woman.' McCarthy made it sound like a challenge.

'Good idea. You should bring dogs, too: bloodhounds, if you have them.'

'Why? What are you implying?' McCarthy said, his natural gruffness reasserting itself.

Stanley turned and gave him a surprisingly firm stare from a man so young. 'I think I'm implying that you have a woman vanished under mysterious circumstances and that, as long a shot as this is, it's all you've got. Front door locked, remember?'

'Well, yes, but – '

'Shoe prints match her size?'

'Yes but – '

'And no sign of forced entry, or struggle.' Dean – Stanley – just shrugged.

'But, look – '

'And no other sightings,' Sam put in. 'As crazy as it may sound, unless she walked out here and then walked backwards in her original tracks, I think that's all there is. We've seen… a few strangely enacted crimes. Can we see inside the house?'

They went through the back door into the simple kitchen. It had a faded yellow floral design. True to McCarthy's pronouncement they found a sink stacked with dishes and a ring of dried soap, the water having long ago drained out around the stopper. There was a slight patina of dust in the house, and motes floating in the slanted sunlight; was it so late already? Also true to McCarthy's claims, there were no signs of a struggle. The bed was made. The furniture was old, a little worn but faithful. A handmade crochet was thrown across the back of the couch.

There was a picture in the living room; old by the look. 'This is Mrs. Hearns?' Sam said. McCarthy waved disinterestedly. Sam looked at it. A woman, early thirties fifties, brown hair, a few extra pounds, a kid, blonde hair and freckles. Both laughing. Sam gazed into the photo a long time, but the only image that swirled to the surface was the simple photo-booth shot that Dad always kept in his wallet, and that Sam had sometimes sneaked a look at when Dean stole the wallet to buy beer. Just a simple photo, dated, showing a young, pretty blonde girl grinning straight white teeth beside Dad with his big nostrils and clean, respectable haircut. She had friendly green eyes – with just a little of something else behind them, a steel or an indomitability, unconquered. Another photo showed them at what looked like the Grand Canyon, blue expanse stretching out behind them. Another showed a pregnant Mary Winchester, heavy with his brother Dean. And another, presumably carrying Sam himself. And that was all. The other photos had not survived the fire, and Dad had not taken other copies of pictures from her more distant relatives. He had been a direct, honest man and they had been… a little apart from her family, and his. It had been a strange thing, never explained, and now he likely never would know.

The pictures were filled with life, but they were no more than pictures. He could not see her, alive, in his mind's eye. She was nothing more than an image – a little like poor Miranda Hearns. Sam tried to imagine a photo of him and his mother like Miranda and Chris, happy, laughing, together, and could not, no matter how he tried.

He tucked the first photo away. He found a more contemporary photo of Miranda showing what Sam grimly expected; the weight of death, of loss. Her shoulders were bowed, her head dragged down, the brown gone to gray. There was no joy in this picture: it was a statement of existence, of persistence. Life had bled out of it. _And out of her_, a voice seemed to say behind his eyes. He blinked. Where had _that_ come from? He looked up to see McCarthy staring at him. He'd said something. 'Sorry, what?' Sam asked blithely.

'_I said_, are you done staring at that? Can we move along?' the Sheriff grunted. His eyes flicked back and forth from Sam to the picture.

'I assume prints were negative?' Dean asked the Sheriff. 'No extraneous marks, nothing besides Mrs. Hearns?'

'All negative. She didn't have visitors. Before you ask: no prints on the windows either, or either outside door. Upstairs windows all locked, no marks.'

'Thorough,' Dean admitted. 'DNA?'

McCarthy laughed. 'On what, son? That kind of crime lab's a little upscale for us anyway.'

They'd been through the whole house, except for the small upper bedroom in the front. 'One last request, Sheriff. Can we see Chris' room?' Dean said.

McCarthy turned his frown on Dean. The effect was walrus-like. 'Why?'

'Just a hunch.'

They could almost see McCarthy physically dig in his heels. 'What _kind_ of hunch?'

Normally the badge was enough to cow the locals, but this sheriff wasn't going to be a pushover. Dean was ready for that. 'If something was taken – a picture, some kind of memorabilia – then that might suggest that Miranda either walked away from her life, or that she was taken by someone connected to her personally.'

McCarthy glared at him with grudging respect. 'Hadn't thought of that. You mean, maybe Tom took her.'

'It's definitely a consideration,' Dean lied. 'Something we can check.'

McCarthy nodded – grudgingly. He took them up to the bedroom and unlocked it; clearly he'd collected the housekeys, maybe another sign that Miranda hadn't just wandered away.

The room was surprisingly still, tepid in the bright sun coming in through the windows. It had the strong smell of children's plastic toys over a fainter scent of disuse and abandonment.

Mickey Mouse wallpaper dappled the walls in bright contrasts of black and white. On the colourful dresser, a clock of the same description sat, its hands motionless on 3:42. The shelves were arrayed with baseball gloves, helmets, and two trophies. A much-thumbed copy of a Hardy Boys reprint sat kitty-corner on a bed-stand, under a lamp. The closet was full of children's clothes, sized for a young teenage boy. A little disjointly, a pair of pyjamas lay discarded on the shag floor, left behind in some rush to somewhere. A drawer, too, lay half-open. Sam and Dean shared a look. It was not abandoned. If anything, it was a shrine. They entered carefully, as if trespassing.

'She kept it exactly as he left it,' Sam said quietly. McCarthy didn't answer.

Dean went to the window. It let out onto the dark woods. 'The neighbours didn't see anything?' There was a bungalow on the right and a two-story of a similar model further away on the left. Trees overhung the simple lots and ran between them.

'No. People generally mind their own business around here. The Bartons – ' he gestured at the bungalow ' – did say their dog was barking that night.'

'Dog barking,' said Sam thoughtfully. He glanced that way through the window.

'Yeah. I guess it's a bit unusual. Old Jasper's usually as calm as a summer breeze.' Did he have to say _summer?_ He took off his hat and fanned himself. 'Mrs. Barton said she might have heard… a scream.'

'You're telling us this now?' Dean blurted. 'Why didn't she do anything?'

'Well, they weren't sure. Could have been the TV. They said they looked and saw nothing.'

'How long between the scream and when they went to look?'

'They didn't say. A couple minutes, I guess.'

'Not too inquisitive,' Dean said archly.

'People mind their own business around here,' McCarthy repeated sourly.

'I understand her son went missing about twenty years ago?' Sam asked.

'He… died. Not missing. Nineteen ninety-one.' McCarthy looked out the window.

'Anyone called her ex yet?'

'It's being looked into. We have a number.' McCarthy straightened up and tucked his hands in his belt. 'Miranda didn't – wasn't known to have many visitors since her husband left. Not many friends, no social media; I don't think she even had an email address. Collected some separation benefits, worked a little at the local 4H and for her church district. Volunteered at the women's shelter. Cashier at the _Stop-and-Go_ at the four corners,' he said, meaning the town center.

'Any, ah, negative run-ins at the shelter?' Sam asked.

'Not that I ever heard about.'

'How about her ex?'

'Separated twenty years now; he left after Christopher died.'

'Any resentment?'

McCarthy tucked his thumbs into his belt; he'd seen a stereotype of a local sheriff do that when he was a kid and he'd liked the expressive authoritative look of it. '_He_ left _her_. She hasn't had so much as a look at another man in all that time, and her ex, Tom, is an old friend of mine. That about wrap up motive, son?'

'Any suspicious activity in the last few months?' Sam asked.

'Nothing. Nothing different, nothing new.' McCarthy fanned his face with his hat again. They were fast approaching a record this year only surpassed by the summer twenty years before, when Christopher Hearns walked into the woods and never walked again out of them.

The FBI agents looked at each other. McCarthy hadn't worked with a lot of them, but he knew when an interview was over. 'Well, we want to thank you for your time, Sheriff McCarthy,' said Stanley. He was clearly the senior agent.

'Yes,' said Thayer. Stanley produced a card from his breast pocket. 'If you think of anything – anything else at all – give us a call.' McCarthy took the card. 'Please call us if anything comes up. Our supervisor's number is on there too: Senior Agent Cooper. Alex Cooper.'

'Right.' McCarthy looked up. 'I've got canvassing and a search to organize… If you really want to help, you could come along tomorrow afternoon.'

The agents exchanged looks. 'Sounds good,' Stanley nodded. 'Nothing's more important than finding Mrs. Hearns. We'll be in touch.'

Sam and Dean hopped in the Impala, slammed the creaky doors. Dean turned the engine over. 'That,' Dean mused, 'was weird.' He looked at Sam, seeming very impressed. 'I don't believe it.'

Sam was scratching his jaw. 'Makes you wonder a little, doesn't it? I mean, if we missed some things.'

'Maybe,' Dean said as they pulled out. 'All right, Sammy: I'm not too big to say I was maybe wrong.'

'Good,' said Sam. 'So say it.' Dean cleared his throat. 'Go ahead,' Sam grinned.

'You catch that?' Dean said instead as they pulled away. 'McCarthy knew her.'

'Small town, Dean. Probably knows everyone.'

'Not like that. There was something there.'

'What?'

'Something tells me he knew her a lot better than from coffee and doughnuts at the Stop-and-Go.' Dean made a rude hand gesture.

Sam scowled as they climbed into the car. 'You think everyone is like you, Dean. Men and women can be _friends_, you know.'

'No they can't, Sammy, it's a proven fact. '

'Smell sulphur?'

'Nope. No one else reported it either.'

'Voices, sounds, cold spots?'

'Cold spots in _this_ weather?' Dean flapped at his collar, trying to vent the humid air down his shirtfront. 'That kid's room was spooky,' he said.

'Kid gets killed, husband leaves… Mom holds onto whatever she can.'

'You didn't get a weird vibe about it, anything like that?'

'Just sadness,' Sam said.

'Yeah, well that's Item #1 on the list of things that indicate supernatural activity, Sam. I think we need to come back when Sheriff GrumpyPants isn't around and do a proper sweep. EMF, everything. Dollars down it's a malevolent spirit.'

'World's a whole lot of sad,' Sam muttered to himself.

'What was that?' Dean said. He looked across. 'You okay, Sammy?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Let's, ah – ' he shook his head. 'Let's get started on that beer and wings, yeah?'

Dean's face cracked in a wide smile. 'Sammy, you read my mind.' His face darkened. 'But I haven't seen one sign yet, Sam. Not one.'

'Not one sign of what?'

'Look, just… be honest, okay? Just tell me the truth.'

'The truth about what?'

'Just admit that you lied about the yarn. That's all I want.' They left in a cloud of dust.

Sheriff McCarthy was leaving the scene and heading for his cruiser, the one with "SHERIFF" across it in gold and blue, just in case people forgot. He tapped his breast pocket and it was empty – the Stop-and-Go was just a few minutes away – no, no, _no_, he wasn't doing that, he had quit and he was going to stay quit. Tilly McCarthy's little boy wasn't going to drop from the lung cancer like his cousin Neil. No damn way. He found some gum instead and had just started a stick – Wrigley's, was there _any_ gum better or more American? – when a voice called 'Sheriff?' He turned.

Walking towards him were two people: a man and a woman this time, dressed in similar dark business suits. McCarthy frowned. 'Yes?'

The man – tall, narrow-faced, dark hair – held up a flat wallet ID badge as they approached. 'Agent Fox Mulder, FBI.'

McCarthy stared. 'What?'

END Chapter 2

_NB: Thanks for putting up with the delay. I'm checking as I go for continuity errors: think I'm okay so far but time is short, as they say. Let me know if you spot anything serious and win a guest appearance as a grim doughnut jock or coffee-slinger, and don't say I never gave you nothin'._


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